The Edger and the Vampires
by Plague's Vengeance
Summary: Sunni Lewis is an Edger, a mongrel brat from a world between worlds; the Broken, where magic doesn't exist except in fairytales and technology reigned, and the Weird, where magic ruled and old blueblood families held all the power. The Edge was a no-man's land, where it was every Edger family for themselves; there were no rules, no laws, no nothing. Then she meets the Cullens.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: New story idea; this is a crossover between my least favorite book series (Twilight) and one of my most favorite (The Edge Series, by Ilona Andrews). I don't know why I'm doing this other than to see if I can make something good from this particular crossover. Here's hoping. This isn't a romance, though there will be some background romance, this is more of a way to explore what a friendship between a magically inclined individual and the Cullens would be like and how that might have changed the Twilight plotline. Or what would happen if the Cullens were thrown in to the Edge-verse. I've changed the Twilight timeline a bit because it doesn't make sense for the Cullens to have moved to Forks two years before Bella arrived, because it would put Edward and Alice as freshman since Bella is a junior in the first book and so are they (I think?). Thus the Cullens will have moved a year before Bella arrives and are just starting as sophomores and juniors respectively. This could also be considered an AU version of Always Sunny.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything that is recognizable; Twilight, The Edge Series, and anything else that might crop up belong to their respective owners. I only own the concept of Sunni and her family. Enjoy.**

 **Full Summary:** _Sunni Lewis is an Edger, a mongrel brat from a world between worlds; the Broken, where magic doesn't exist except in fairytales and technology reigned, and the Weird, where magic ruled and old blueblood families held all the power. The Edge was a no-man's land, where it was every Edger family for themselves; there were no rules, no laws, no nothing. Just the strength of your family's magic and how well they could use it to protect you._

 _Sunni's family could use it very, very well. They lived in the Edge town known as Oaks Town located in the Broken state of Washington, near the small town of Forks. That's where Sunni goes to school and occasionally works. That's where she meets creatures that aren't supposed to be able to exist in the Broken. Creatures that aren't supposed to exist period. But they do and they're very curious about Sunni and against her better judgement, she's curious about them too._

 _For the first time in millennia, vampires will roam the Edge and feel the trickle of her magic. But their entrance comes with a price when more vampires show up and threaten the safety of not only the Edge, but the Weird too. Sunni and her new found undead friends have to stop them before its too late._

 _Well crap._

* * *

There were three things Sunni Lewis absolutely hated; one was clowns, another was her brother's shedding, and the last was crossing the border between the Broken and the Edge.

You see, Sunni and her family lived between two worlds; the Weird, where magic pooled deeply and wild things roamed, lay to one side and the Broken, where people shopped at Walmart and magic was nothing more than a fairytale lay on the other. That place where the two dimensions "touched", intersecting and creating a narrow stretch of land that belonged to both worlds, was known as the Edge.

The Edge was a no-man's land, a place without countries or cops—or any kind of law enforcement really—and it took in everyone. Criminals of all kinds, clannish families, crazed separatists, and fugitives from both the Weird and the Broken—if they had the magic to see the boundary lines—all were welcome in the Edge, all were poor as dirt, and all kept to themselves. The Edgers gave no quarter and expected no sympathy.

Crossing the boundary lines was painful and sometimes deadly—too much or too little magic could kill you in the crossing. As it was Sunni just barely made the quota when it came to having just the right amount of too little magic to make the crossing between the Broken and the Edge without dying. The rest of her family had too much magic.

Mundane Douglas firs and spruces replaced gigantic Edge cedars and towering hemlocks as Sunni popped out on the other side of the boundary line into the Broken. She shook off the incomplete, broken feeling being in the magicless dimension left her with. That was how the Broken got its name by the way.

Rain pelted her windshield and Sunni flicked her wipers on, easing her old Ford Bronco down the muddy side road that would take her to the main road of the Broken town known as Forks. Edge towns didn't usually have schools, so most Edger kids were either homeschooled or, if they had Social Security numbers—or at least moderately good fakes—went to school in the Broken. The Edge town of Oaks Town was no exception.

Sunni reached the end of the side road and slowed, leaning forward to squint at the main road. This far away from Forks, the main road wasn't exactly _busy_ , but Sunni still had to be careful turning on to it from the side road since it was, you know, invisible to most people from the Broken. All they would see was a wall of trees and, if someone was coming down the road right at the moment, they would see a red and white 1984 Ford Bronco coming out of them.

Thirty minutes later, Sunni pulled into the nearly empty parking lot of Forks High School and bit back a curse when she saw her customary spot was taken by a shiny new Volvo. She glared at it, lips twisting into a frown. It was times like this Sunni wished she could use her magic in the Broken. She'd use her flash to slash the bastard's pretty tires—a bit excessive perhaps, but it was literally the perfect spot to park and everyone at the school knew she'd claimed it as hers the moment she'd gotten her car. She'd flashed for less.

Flashing was something anyone with a drop of magic could learn how to do. All you had to do was take a hold of the magic inside you and channel it from your body in a controlled burst that looked like a whip or ribbon of lightning; it didn't take talent, only practice and the will to do it. The lighter the color of your flash, the hotter and more potent it was. The most accomplished flashers could flash white; the hottest, most potent a flash could get. A strong flash could slice through a human body like a hot knife through butter.

Of course, few Edgers could get their flash anywhere near that powerful. Most flashed red or dark orange although a select few could flash green or blue. White flash tended to be reserved for bluebloods from the Weird.

Sunni could flash white and as she pulled into an empty space a few cars away from her regular spot, she pictured the white ribbon of her magic slashing the tires—maybe even the car—to pieces. See, Sunni wasn't like most Edgers. Sure, she'd been born in there, but both of her parents—and her older brother—had been born in the Weird. They'd run to the Edge after a… _disagreement_ between Sunni's mother and grandfather occurred over some of her mother's life choices.

Lewis wasn't even technically their last name; it just happened to be the name Sunni's parents had decided to use when Sunni was born and it became obvious her mother's surname would be too weird—ha!—for the Broken.

Sunni tugged her hood over her head before hopping out of the toasty cab of her Bronco to brave the torrential downpour. She gave the Volvo the evil eye on her way to her first class of the day; Algebra 2.

 _Blah_.

~.~.~.~

Three hours and three classes later, Sunni wanted desperately to bang her head against the nearest hard surface. Or possibly ring someone's neck. Either option was looking more and more appealing as the day wore on.

Her first hour had been a nightmare. No one—literally _no one_ —wanted to focus on the lesson because apparently the school had gained five new students. Five mysterious, and supposedly ungodly beautiful, people that the rest of the student body could not shut up about. Miss Jensen, the Algebra 2 teacher, had had a helluva time getting anyone to pay attention then gave up about twenty minutes into the class hour.

Second hour hadn't been nearly as bad since Mr. Michaels, the World History teacher, was the biggest hardass in the school. He was also an Edger and like many mongrel Edgers, he worked in the Broken. Unlike many Edgers, he'd actually gone to college. He could have been a professor at the university in Seattle, but had chosen to teach in small town Forks to help motivate the few Edger brats that went to Forks High to go to college and make more of themselves.

He had pretty much shut down any and all gossip about the new students with the threat of a five page essay on the Industrial Revolution if anyone so much as deviated from the day's lesson. Shut everyone right up.

Third hour had been by far the worst though. Sunni actually had one of these mysterious, ungodly beautiful new students in that class. Mike Newton, her lab partner, had almost set Sunni's shirt on fire with a Bunsen burner when the petite brunette had walked into the Chemistry classroom fifteen minutes late.

Mr. Richards had given her detention for cussing Newton out for a solid five minutes afterwards. Sunni had not been amused, but the tiny brunette clearly had been. The girl–Sunni had been too busy cursing Newton out to hear her name—hadn't laughed, but Sunni could tell she had really wanted to.

Now it was lunch and Sunni had a vague hope that after all the horribleness, the day could only get better from here. But alas, the Universe had decided to have a mordant sense of humor that day and Sunni was its target.

She had just finished filling her tray with the day's special—spaghetti, yummy—and was in the process of turning towards her preferred lunch table where her few friends—fellow Edger brats such as herself—were waiting when she crashed into someone's chest. Someone's very broad, very muscular, very _hard_ chest.

The tray upended and hot spaghetti splashed across Sunni's chest, staining her sweater with red. The cafeteria went silent and all eyes turned to her and whoever she'd just run into _._

Sunni exhaled like an angry bull and tilted her head to glare at the ceiling. _Today is just not my day._

"Sorry, didn't see you there." A deep, booming, _laughing_ voice apologized.

 _Didn't see…?_ Sunni felt her cheek twitch she was clenching her teeth so hard. She counted to ten in her head then finally deigned to look at her assailant. At least two inches taller than her, built like a goddamned bodybuilder with freakishly pale skin, curly dark brown hair, and gold eyes that were currently laughing at her from a devastatingly beautiful face. He smiled and two dimples dug craters into his cheeks giving him a charmingly boyish look that had several nearby girls swooning.

Sunni didn't swoon. In fact, alarm bells went off in Sunni's head as she stared at him. He was admittedly a handsome bastard—and if that cheeky smile was anything to go by, he knew it too—but there was something not quite right with the way he looked. Something not quite _human_. He was just too perfect.

The small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and Sunni had to resist the urge step away. Instead she straightened her spine and scowled thunderously at the cheeky asshole. Freaky vibes or not, she was Lewis and when they didn't let anyone—or any _thing_ intimidate them.

"I'm six-three and a bloody ginger, how did you _miss me?_ " _Don't just get scared, get angry._ As far as family wisdom went, it could be better but it had served Sunni well growing up in the dog-eat-dog world of the Edge and in the gossip-monger town of Forks.

"Weeelll…" He dragged the word out and shrugged a pair of truly massive shoulders, lifting his hands slightly in an "I don't even know" gesture. His gold eyes continued to laugh at her, but underneath that laughter, Sunni saw something… _hungry_ staring at her.

 _Houston, we have a problem. Abort, mission, abort!_

"Yeah, well watch where you're going next time Gigantor." Sunni snapped and edged around him with as much dignity as she could with spaghetti sauce and pasta noodles smeared across her front. When it doubt, use the ever charming Edger politeness.

"Will do, Red."

Sunni wrinkled her nose but didn't condescend to turn back around. She reached her lunch table and slammed her tray on it, scowling at the three other people sitting there.

"Thanks a lot for the save, guys."

Lounging in the chair across from her, Benji Connors shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly though his tight expression betrayed his worry. "You looked like you had it handled, Lewis."

And that was Edgers for you; every man for himself. Even in the Broken.

Sunni scowled at him, but didn't take it too personally. Benji had six younger siblings he had to help take care of and he was already on thin ice with the school; he couldn't afford to rock the boat even for his best friend of over a decade. She could tell by his eyes that he'd wanted to help, but the threat of a possible suspension if he acted out any more kept him in his seat.

"Whatever." Sunni grumped. She pushed her tray away from her and accepted the napkin Nate LeBeau handed to her. Nate, by Edger standards, was the sweetheart of the group; quiet and gentle, he could bring a puppy that had been hit by a car back from the dead or rip your life right out of you with his magic. No joke.

"They're not human are they?" The question came from the last of their little foursome, Bobby Duncan. She was stirring her yogurt cup in small precise circles, green eyes focused on the far side of the cafeteria. Bobby was from one of the more well to-do families in Oaks Town, but since her family had humble beginnings, she had a decent head screwed on her shoulders. She could also throw curses around like nobody's business.

Sunni chanced a glance in that direction, saw Gigantor and the pixie girl from History sitting with three other inhumanly attractive people, and went back to the futility of cleaning spaghetti from her sweater. She remembered the hunger in Gigantor's eyes and snorted. "Doubt it."

"How's that possible?" Nate spoke with a faint Louisiana drawl and he turned a pair of velvet brown eyes on Sunni, as if she was supposed to know the answer. "We're in the Broken."

She frowned at him. "The hell am I supposed t'know?"

"You're from the Weird." Benji flapped his hand at her. "There's all sorts of strange shit there."

While that last bit was true—the Weird really was full of all sorts of strange creatures and things—Sunni had been born in the Edge. She said as much to the three morons she called friends.

"My parents and brother were born there. I was born in the Edge just like you asshats."

Benji rolled his shoulders. "Details. We know your Mom makes you study all that crap from there."

Okay, he had a point there; her mom did teach her in the ways of the Weird on the—very slim—off chance their family ever went back. He didn't have to be an ass about it though.

Sunni gave up on her sweater and tossed the napkin on her tray before shedding her leather jacket and peeling the whole thing over her head, leaving her in just a long-sleeved shirt. She shoved it in her bag and folded her arms on the table, shifting her body around so she could scrutinize the new students without getting a crick in her neck.

None of them looked alike at all and yet they were all freakishly similar at the same time. There was the petite brunette from History sitting next to a tall, lean blonde boy. Gigantor sat across from the pixie with a statuesque blonde girl on his left and a lanky bronze-haired boy on his right. All of them had bright eyes in varying shades of gold and they were all so stunningly attractive it was ridiculous.

The lanky boy looked up and met Sunni's eyes.

When she was ten years old, Sunni had stupidly wondered into the woods around her family's house by herself, something her mother and father told her never to do. In those woods she had come face to teeth with an Edge wolf; almost twice the size of a wolf from the Broken and imbued with the magic of the Wood, the creature had wanted nothing more than to make ten year old Sunni a nice little snack. Lucky for Sunni, her brother had burst out of the bushes and ripped into the wolf before it could do just that. She had it's teeth strung up on a necklace back home.

Looking into the lanky boy's eyes catapulted her back to that day and just like back then, when she had stared into the Edge wolf's eyes, Sunni felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, her muscles tense, and her heart stutter in her chest. Staring into those topaz depths, Sunni saw the wolf's hunger reflected back at her and it was just as frightening now as it was when she was ten years old.

Oh yeah, _definitely_ not human.

The sixty-four thousand dollar questions were how are they in the Broken, a place without magic? And _what_ the hell were they?


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Don't own anything except Sunni, her family, and her friends. The concept of the Edge, The Weird, The Broken and all the good stuff that goes along with it belongs to the wonderful Ilona Andrews. The Cullens and that nonsense belongs to Stephanie Meyers.**

 **Unbeta'd so forgive any mistakes but please feel free to point them out. Enjoy.**

* * *

Sunni wasn't an easily frightened person—when two of your family members sprouted fur and fangs longer than your pinkie finger, had stared death in the face at ten years old, and could cut a human being in half with a whip of magic, not much frightened you. Except for clowns. Clowns were child-eating demons in disguise and should be treated with caution at all times. But that was more of a personal problem on her end.

But right at that moment, sitting in the cafeteria and staring into the lanky boy's eyes like a deer caught in the headlights, Sunni was frightened. Her mother's " _Don't just get scared, get angry"_ flew right out the window. Her face felt hot and her hands icy cold and her heart was beating a staccato rhythm against her ribs. In the face of her fear, she instinctively reached for the warm spark of magic to defend herself with and felt nothing. Just empty, cold space where the spark was supposed to be. Right. In the Broken. No magic here. Crap.

The lanky boy looked away, down at the table. Sunni could suddenly breathe again. She sucked in deep, greedy lungsful of air and tried to still the erratic palpitations of her heart. Benji, Bobby, and Nate were staring at her with wide eyes, pale-faced and worried. Benji reached out a hand, fingertips just barely brushing her knuckles.

Sunni flinched and surged to her feet, nearly upending her chair. Several students glanced her way, including the five newcomers, but Sunni ignored them. She grabbed her bag, mumbled something about heading to class and all but booked it out of the cafeteria like her ass was on fire. She didn't even stop when Benji called out her name, the burning gaze she felt boring into her back spurring her to move faster.

She reached her fourth hour class in record time, her sudden and rather harried appearance in the doorway startling Mrs. Barnes. The fifty-something English teacher peered over her horn-rimmed glasses.

"Are you alright, dear?"

"Y-yeah." Sunni winced when her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, running an agitated hand through her short red hair. She forced a smile and hung her jacket on the hook—she didn't remember putting it on in her hurried flight from the cafeteria but there it was. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks, Mrs. B."

Mrs. Barnes looked doubtful but thankfully didn't push and Sunni shuffled over to the black-topped lab table she'd claimed as her own at the beginning of the year. Mrs. Barnes doubled as the AP biology teacher as well as the sophomore English teacher and she taught both in the same classroom. According the student grapevine, she'd forced the school board to let her do it because she refused to continuously run between two separate classrooms every hour in the rain. Something about old bones and arthritis. It was funny considering she coached the girls softball team.

Thus the classroom was an odd mish-mash of a stereotypical English classroom and a science classroom equipped with two rows of black-topped lab tables each with its own microscope, a row of computers in the back, a wall of science equipment as well as a sink at one wall, and several bookshelves laden down with textbooks of both the English and scientific persuasion.

Sunni's table was in the middle of the second row farthest from the door and right next to the forty-gallon aquarium where the classroom's mascot, Miss Wiggles, made her home. Miss Wiggles was a ten-foot long albino ball python with a tendency to escape her tank and a surly disposition; Miss Wiggles hated literally everyone except Mrs. Barnes.

Benji was thoroughly convinced the snake was from the Edge, but had yet to find any actual proof other than the snake's temper and her ability to get out of her tank no matter what was stacked on the mesh lid; even in the Broken, some things still kept their preternatural strength so it was possible.

Sunni sat in her seat. Coiled lazily on her branch, Miss Wiggles' forked tongue flicked out of her lipless mouth and tickled the tank's glass in the reflection of Sunni's nose. Hi, nice to see you too sweetheart. Sunni smiled thinly at the snake, it was best to be polite to the misanthropic reptile, and pulled out her binder and a pencil.

For the next fifteen minutes, Sunni doodled in the margins of the loose leaf paper in her binder until the nasal buzz of the bell signified the end of the lunch period and the classroom steadily began to fill with students.

She was adding a pair of horns to her doodle when the rambunctious sounds of the other students drifted into silence. Crap _._

Slowly, reluctantly, Sunni lifted her head and found herself once again ensnared by a pair of gold eyes. The lanky boy from lunch. _Of course._ He was standing next to Mrs. Barnes' desk, waiting patiently as she scribbled something on a piece of paper, his eyes focused entirely on her. Double crap.

Mrs. Barnes said something too low for Sunni to hear, but she saw the woman nod in her direction just fine. _Triple crap_. The lanky boy inclined his head and crossed the short distant between the teacher's desk and Sunni's table in a few strides. Sunni had to resist the urge to run away shrieking at the top of her lungs. If they'd been in the Edge, she would have flashed the hell out of the guy before he got within ten feet of her. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for her, they were not in the Edge.

"Hello." Lanky Guy murmured in a smooth, melodious voice as he sat his books down and took the aisle seat.

Sunni unlocked her teeth—when had she clenched them?—and forced herself to smile politely. She had a feeling her smile looked more deranged than polite. Oh well. "Hey."

He was staring at her like she was the most peculiar thing he'd ever come across. Sunni wanted to poke him in the eye just to get him to stop. Instead she forced herself to look away from him and down at her notebook.

"My name is Edward Cullen." He said it like he was offering her a boon of some sort.

Sunni wrinkled her nose, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. "That's nice."

The paradigm of Edger social graces that was Sunni, yes siree.

One perfectly shaped brow arched and a little smile played at the corner of his flawless lips. "Customarily when someone introduces themselves to another, the other party returns the favor."

He spoke like he was from some other era; "Customarily when someone introduces themselves, blah, blah, blah." It was weirder than hell and Sunni grew up in the Edge; she had seen some pretty weird crap in her life. Speaking of which, if he went up to someone in the Edge and said that, he was likely to get shot. Or cursed. Depended on who he went up to, really.

But alas, Sunni was in the Broken, so no cursing, and as she was in school, no gun or crossbow either. Damn. Time to employ those lovely Edger social graces some more.

"You don't say." She murmured—more like mocked—without looking at him. "Where I'm from we usually just shoot people."

"Oh?" He finally looked away from her, focusing on Mrs. Barnes as she stood from her chair and called the classroom into order. "And where would you be from, Miss?"

Ha! Like she was going to tell him that. Trying to explain the Edge to someone from the Broken was like trying to explain quantum physics to a toddler. You weren't immediately sent to a padded white room, but it did land you in the decidedly kooky category and people gave you a wide berth at lunch time and refused to play with you at recess.

Then again…Sunni shot a quick look in direction, taking in his pale skin and flawless features. His humanity was still in question, so he might actually believe her. Which could either be a good thing or a very, very bad thing.

Sunni finally settled on saying, "Nowhere you'd know."

"I find that highly doubtful." He murmured back with a secretive little smile twisting his mouth.

Well whooptidoo for you, buckaroo. Did he want her to give him a cookie? Sunni decided the best course of action was to just ignore him. Mrs. Barnes was doing a recap of what they'd learned over the last three weeks—probably for Mr. Edward I-Talk-Like-A-Weirdo Cullen sitting next to her—so Sunni didn't need to take notes. Sunni took notes anyway, if only to distract her from curious looks Cullen kept sending her way. And because, well, she was abysmal at English—math was more her thing—and she could use all the help she could get.

The hour passed slower than molasses in December. Sunni was ready to feed herself to Miss Wiggles by the time the bell buzzed and she nearly broke her ankle in her mad scramble to get as far from Edward Obviously-Not-Human Cullen as she could get. She thought she heard him laugh, but couldn't be sure and like hell she was going to stop and find out.

Her last two classes of the day, Spanish and PE, passed in a blur and were, thankfully, new-student free. Mr. Richards he let her go fifteen minutes into her hour long detention because she was the only one there; apparently spending an hour alone with her was equivalent to Chinese water torture or so the Chem teacher claimed. Sunni decided to take the comment as a compliment and scurried out of the classroom without protest.

Her awful day seemed to be looking up.

Then she made it to the parking lot. Guess who was still loitering around the nearly empty lot next to the spot stealing shiny Volvo and a jeep? If your guess was five freakishly pale and inhumanly attractive individuals you would be right.

Quadruple crap.

Sunni stared, uncomprehending, for several long moments before she forced her frozen legs to move. Her charming English partner watched her, that same curious expression from class on his face. The other four followed his gaze; the statuesque blonde sneered, the pixie and the lean blonde beside her mimicked Cullen's curious expression and Gigantor grinned and waved at her like an idiot.

Sunni resisted the urge to flip them off with both hands. She was pretty sure resisting the urge took a year off her life but she did it; her uncle would be so proud. What she _didn't_ refrain from was smiling at the five in a controlled baring of her teeth. It was the same smile her father gave just before he went furry and started ripping throats out.

Edward's brows arched in obvious surprise before he tilted his head back, lips parting slightly. He was laughing. At her. _Asshat._

If he ever found his way to the Edge, Sunni would give him something to laugh about that was for damn sure.

Scowling fiercely, she climbed into her Bronco, slammed the door shut, and gunned the engine to life. People glanced her way. Sunni ignored them and sped out of the parking lot. She had some questions for her mother.

~.~.~.~

It was almost six o'clock by the time Sunni pulled her old Bronco up the dirt path some might graciously call a driveway. The driveway was about half a mile long, boxed in on either side by huge, towering trees, and it abruptly terminated in a large clearing after about a hundred feet. Smackdab in the center of the clearing was an oak tree of truly prodigious size; it towered above its evergreen brethren ringing the clearing and its roots sprouted from the grass like great sea serpents from legend. It was under one of these roots, about ten feet from the split base of the oak, that Sunni parked her Bronco right next to her brother's beat up Chevy.

She hooked her arms in the plastic groceries bags scattered on the bench seat next to her and shimmied out of the cab after opening the door, hollering at the top of her lungs as she did so. "I'M HOME!"

She trudged towards the oak tree, which was even more impressive up close. This oak tree was one of many scattered throughout this section of the Edge and like Sunni's family, many Edgers had made these giants their homes, cutting houses into the very trees themselves and building treehouses among the sprawling branches; anywhere from a single family to a dozen could live in a single oak. That was how the makeshift town had earned its name of Oaks Town.

The front door flew open and a massive figure stepped out onto the porch; six-foot-six and built like a bear, the man standing on the porch looked like he broke bones for a living and really loved his job. People in Oaks Town parted like the Red Sea before Moses when he walked through.

Hello, big brother.

"What are you doing just standing there like an asshole?" Sunni glowered at her brother Liam from three feet away, her arms going numb from the grocery bags weighing down her arms and cutting her circulation off. "Get over here and help me with these!"

Liam grunted—a man of few words, her brother—and lumbered over to her. She transferred more than three-fourths of the grocery bags onto his tree-trunk arms and, significantly less burdened, skipped up the porch stairs to the front door.

She ducked inside the house and made a beeline for the kitchen where the most delicious aroma was coming from. Her mother stood at the stove stirring something in a large pot. At forty-three, Gwyn Lewis still looked thirty years young and had a body twenty-somethings would kill for. During her adolescent years, before she'd learned to appreciate her body for the way it was, Sunni used to wish she looked more like her mother instead of her father. As it was Sunni was happy to have only inherited her mother's fiery red hair, dark eyes, and "birthing hips" as the ever charming Mrs. McLeary called them.

Sunni deposited her burden on the kitchen table and wondered over to the petite woman, bending down to drop a kiss on her cheek. "Smells delicious, Ma."

"Thank you." Gwyn smiled and lifted the spoon, holding it out for her daughter to taste. "How was your day, darling?"

Sunni slurped some of the stew from the spoon and made appreciative noises before responding. "It was…interesting."

Liam came in, dumped the rest of the groceries on the table, ruffled Sunni's hair, and walked right back out of the kitchen. Probably went to go tinker with something in the workshop out back so as to avoid putting the groceries away. Sunni snorted and rolled her eyes before starting to sort and put everything away.

"Interesting how, dear?"

"Well, we have some new students. Five of them, two girls and three boys." Sunni paused, her mouth opening and closing a few times as she tried to think of a way to word her next statement. She didn't want her mother to freak out or, Gods forbid, start theorizing. "There's something…off about them, Ma."

Something in her tone must have caught her mother's attention because she turned and fixed jet black eyes on her daughter. "What do you mean by 'off', dear?"

"They're…well, they're beautiful. Like ridiculously beautiful." Sunni explained and wrinkled her nose in thought. "They've got really pale, really perfect skin, and all of them have gold eyes. And when they look at you, it's like looking into the eyes of a starving Edge wolf."

"I see." Her mother murmured and pursed her lips thoughtfully. Sunni knew that look; that was her mother's "I've just got a theory and I can't wait to test it" look. That look was usually followed by some sort of explosion or combustion of some sort.

Sunni edged closer to the hallway and tentatively asked, "Do you know something, Ma?"

Her mother waved a dismissive hand, "Just a theory, dear."

Nailed it. Better start running.

Sunni watched warily as her mother turned the burner off and glided out of the kitchen before trailing after her. Her mother bypassed the stairs that led to the cellar and her workroom in the basement, and took the stairs that led to the upper levels of their house-tree. Sunni continued to follow her like a puppy, her curiosity overpowering her instinctive need to get the hell out of the house when her mother was in one of her "theorizing" moods.

It was a surprise, yet not much of one, when her mother stopped on fourth floor of their house-tree. The fourth floor, also known as the Library, was a just one massive circular room with several tiers. Shelves, dozens of feet high, were carved into the walls while others were scattered about the space along with chairs, couches, tables, and desks. A huge wrought iron candle chandelier dangled from the ceiling, illuminating the room alongside the large braziers and wall scones. Despite all the shelves, it wasn't anywhere close to being full. It wasn't even a third of the way there, no matter how many books her mother and her mother's brother, Sunni's uncle Ioan, bought to fill up the space.

Gwyn waved her hand and the chandelier, the wall scones, and the braziers burst into being with magic fire and illuminated the room. Sunni hung back near the doorway as her mother moved further into the room, heading towards the spiral staircase that connected the main floor with the four tiers encircling the room in the center of the room. She was humming under her breath.

Her mother could level buildings with her flash and shoot the dots off a domino at a hundred yards and she was humming the theme song to _Mickey Mouse Club House_. Oi _._

Speaking of annoying Disney shows, Sunni wondered where the little spawn of Satan that enjoyed watching them was. She shuffled over to the bottom of the stairs, grasped the railing, and called out to her mother.

"Hey, Ma?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Where's the spaw-er, I mean, where's Lili?" Lili was Sunni and Liam's five year old spitfire of a younger sister. She was also the devil incarnate.

"She had a playdate with the Fergus Triplets today."

Ah. Jacqueline, James, and Josephine Fergus or Jack, Jim, and Josie—no joke those were their names, their mother had an absolutely wretched sense of humor—more commonly known as the Triplets were six years old and their closest neighbors, living two miles to the south of them in a smaller, but still quite large oak tree with their parents, Laura and Peter Fergus.

Sunni furrowed her brow as a thought occurred to her. "Doesn't Mrs. Fergus work today?"

She was a part time ER nurse in the Broken. She worked odd hours, but the pay was apparently good.

"She does."

"Then…who's watching the kids?"

Laughter clear in her voice, her mother responded as she descended the stairs, several old tomes in her arms. "Pete and your father are watching them."

Oh. Wow. That was… _wow._

Sunni looked at her mother, completely serious. "Should we be planning the funerals?"

Her mother gave her a chiding look. "They're not that bad, Sunnifa."

Sunni wrinkled her nose at the use of her full name and deadpanned. "Ma, they gave Ms. McLeary a heart attack. She threatened to curse both our families if any of them ever came near her again."

"Ms. McLeary is pushing a hundred and has terrible cholesterol."

"She was ninety-three and could bench press a car when it happened." Her sister had been three and the Triplets had been four. People still talked about it, but no one was really clear on what had happened.

Her mother huffed and dropped the books on a nearby table. "She still has terrible cholesterol."

 _Riiight_ , keep telling yourself that, Ma. Sunni wisely kept the comment to herself and landed in one of the chairs circling the table. She propped her elbows on the table and cradled her chin in her hands, watching her mother carefully lay out the books. Watching her mother work her magic would never not be fascinating to Sunni whether she was five years old or sixteen years old.

Most Edgers had their own specific talents; some cursed like Bobby, some raised the dead like Nate, some prophesied. Some, like Benji, had a talent so specific there wasn't an actual name for it. Even Sunni, with her blueblood heritage, had her own specific talent outside of flashing.

But her mother hadn't been born in the Edge, though she had long since been accepted as Edger. No, Gwyn Lewis had been born in the Weird to a notable blueblood family known for their magic prowess, and as such she knew how to use her magic in all sorts of fun ways.

Seeking was one of those fun ways—at least in Sunni's humble opinion. Others found it rather boring compared to some of the other tricks her mother could pull. _Seeking_ , as the name implied, was used to seek things out; objects, places, people or animals, even information could be found with seeking.

And if the books resting on the table were anything to go by, information was exactly what her mother was seeking to find.

Gwyn finished arranging the tomes to her satisfaction on the table and straightened, brushing her long red hair from her face. She closed her eyes and held her hands out over the books and began to chant lowly.

Enraptured, Sunni watched as her mother's magic gathered just above her shoulders in a shimmering, wispy mist of pure white. The mist hovered in place for a moment, thickening into a sort of shimmery cloud before it split and slunk down her mother's arms in two thick ropes. The ropes of magic separated further, breaking apart then coiling together into wire thin strands.

The strands reached her hands and dripped off her fingertips like spider silk. The strands of magic just hung from her mother's fingertips then the air became charged as if with electricity. The strands reared up and sparked, crackling with power, before shooting towards the books. The strands pierced the books' covers and the tomes themselves trembled. Light burst from them as her mother's magic suffused the paper.

Her mother stopped chanting. Her eyes flickered behind her lids. Sunni held her breath, watching with rapt attention.

One book glowed brighter than the rest and her mother let out a high-pitched gasp, her eyes snapping open.

"Vampires!" Her eyes rolled back and she dropped.


End file.
